Meadow

cw // description of injuries

Blood. The metallic scent of it returned to him, drowing out the smells of dirt and sweat that were already thick in his nostrils. For a moment Boone thought he was about to lose himself again, but then he tasted copper and the sting of his own tongue lolling, thick and swollen, in his mouth. Then he caught the gleam of cuts across the other stallion's skin, the red appearing almost black in the wan light. Somehow Boone had landed a blow or two in his desperation. He might have gloated had his body not felt like it was about to collapse under its own weight.

Backing several steps away, Boone stared down the other stallion with his ears twisted flat atop his pale crown and his breaths ripping haggard from his lungs. Every inhale and exhale was as sharp as glass, and his wide, glazed eyes stared out like marbles from the sunken hollows of his face.

No answer to the stallion's question passed his lips, at first. His mind raced in spite of its sluggishness, stumbling over the visions he'd seen, but they had already dissipated, and no amount of grasping after them brought them back. There was only the now: the first twitters of birdsong, the grass whispering against his feet, the clouds of his breath and the peachy smear of sunlight on the horizon. And, of course, all the aches of his body.

"You looked like you could use some humbling," Boone growled, as blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. He wanted to run, but his pale legs were trembling, as much from exhaustion as adrenaline, and his brain swirled like someone had stuck a twig in it and stirred. Way to poke the bear again, dumbass, he berated himself.